


April Fool

by Ignicula



Category: God Eater (Video Games), God Eater 3
Genre: Attempt at Humor, Gen, Keith is a Bad Influence on Phym, Pranks and Practical Jokes, Pranks and Practical Jokes getting out of hand
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-01
Updated: 2020-04-01
Packaged: 2021-02-28 20:53:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23433475
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ignicula/pseuds/Ignicula
Summary: After uncovering more data for the TV show Bugarally, Keith, Zeke, and Neal find themselves exposed to a brand new holiday, and just in time for the day itself to arrive! With the entire Ash Crawler on board, Keith and Zeke decide to celebrate April Fools in the only way they know how: their own way. Will the Chrysanthemum manage to weather the coming storm? We may or may not find out.
Kudos: 27





	April Fool

**Author's Note:**

> Happy April Fools. Instead of writing a prank, I decided to write about people BEING pranked.

“Hey, Hugo, have you heard of April Fool’s day?”

A head of black and white hair popped up at the mention of his name, and the owner of said hair tilted it slightly in consideration. “No, I can’t say I have.”

“Neal, Keith and I learned about it in the most recent episodes of Bugarally.” The speaker, Zeke, replied with a mischievous smile. “It happens once a year: on the first day of April, people used to celebrate by doing April Fools pranks.”

“So… essentially it’s a day where you can get away with playing tricks on each other?” Hugo considered, setting aside his work tablet. “Where did it come from?”

“Uh… well… Bugarally didn’t exactly get into the origins…” He trails off. “But it looks like a whole ton of fun! We should tell everyone about it!”

“I agree. With all the missions lately, it sounds like a good way to unwind.” Hugo states, a slight smirk on his face already. “April first is today, right?”

“Yeah, so we’d better get to it.” Zeke grinned. “I’ll go tell the others about it. Prepare for a whole ton of good pranks - Keith is going all out.”

Hugo  _ pales.  _ Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea after all. “Actually, maybe we should reconsider…”

“Don’t worry, Keith won’t hurt anyone.” Zeke reassured him. “But it’ll be fun to watch. Later!”

_ I feel like I’ve made a huge mistake _ , Hugo thinks as Zeke rushes out of the male dorm.  _ But still… this’ll probably be my one and only chance to pull one over Luca without fear of retaliation past today. I should take advantage of it while I can. _

O

Hugo Pennywort hadn’t exactly been the model of good behavior in his childhood. He’d always found ways to start or join fights, get into mischief, and get in trouble. Mostly, this was on behalf of the Hounds and the other AGEs of Pennywort. Now, though, he was finally going to use his hard-learned skills for his own sake. 

Honestly, he was a bit lost on what to actually  _ do  _ now that he had this freedom. He knew he wanted to do  _ something _ , but at the same time he’s not sure what. If it’s too weak of a prank Luca would just stare at him in disappointment and walk away, which ruins the joy in it. If it's something too extreme, however… he doesn’t want to truly upset his friend. 

“Hugo.” A quiet voice manages to raise its volume over the hum of machinery down the hall.  _ Well, speak of the devil… or rather think of the devil, and he will appear.  _ Down the hall walked none other than the Devil of the Chrysanthemum himself, Phym trailing behind him as usual. “Any missions today?”

“Ah, no.” Hugo replies. “Actually, we’re taking the day off. Missions resume tomorrow.”

“Really?” He asks. 

“Yeah.” Hugo almost tells him, and then pauses. This is the  _ perfect  _ opportunity! “Has Zeke told you about what’s going on today?”

“Zeke? I haven’t seen him… wasn’t he binge-watching Bugarally with Keith and Neal?”

...He’s going to have to find a way to enforce the no binge-watching TV rule inside of the God Arc Storage room, isn’t he? “Well he wasn’t supposed to be.”

“I figured. I’d try to stop them, but Keith always locks me out of God Arc Storage.”

“He locks you out?” Hugo asks, eyebrow raised.

“He doesn’t like it when I wander in randomly, so he built a system to lock me out.” His friend replied.

_ Well, he does wander around the ship a lot. I can see how that could be distracting, but… _

“I’ll go talk to Keith.”

“No need.” Luca replied. “I don’t have any good reason to go in there anyways.”

“True enough.” Hugo replied with a sigh.

“So what was going on today?”

Phym opens her mouth to answer, but Hugo responds first. He feels bad about cutting her off, but hopefully she’ll play along with it. “Apparently Keith hid a bunch of prizes around the ash crawler. They’re being guarded by traps. Apparently in order to get to them you have to set the traps off.”

Phym covers her mouth, cheeks bulging in an effort to not giggle. Her eyes gleam, and she nods.  _ What a good kid.  _

Luca frowned, head tilted. “Why would he do that?”

“It’s something he learned about on Bugarally.” He replied. “Just humor him and go along with it.”

“Understood… If I see any traps I’ll trigger them.” He looks  _ so  _ confused. This is  _ perfect _ …  _ Shit, wait a second, guilt is setting in. Stop that!  _ “Should I retaliate against Keith or is that against the rules?”

...Oh this just got better.

“It’s actually encouraged, according to Zeke.” Hugo replied, all business-as-usual. “Except you’re meant to do so only with pranks.”

“This is a very strange sort of event.” Luca comments. “Anything else?”

“Nothing else comes to mind, no.” Hugo replied. “Just be on the lookout for Keith’s traps.”

Three birds, one stone. He can prank Luca, Keith’s traps will all be disarmed, and there’s a good chance even Luca will be caught in the effects when he sets them off. Oh, make that four birds.

Luca  _ will  _ retaliate at Keith… tenfold for every trap he sets off.

O

Keith snickers as he sets up the last trap right above the door to storage, spinning his screwdriver in hand. “Perfect! Now to go to God Arc Storage and watch from safety while everyone suffers~...”

“Keith!” A high-pitched girl’s voice piped up.

_ Is that Phym? _

He turns around, spotting the girl skipping down the hallway looking all too mischievous for her own good… but that was the spirit of the holiday he supposed.”Yo, Phym. What’s up?”

She looks around with exaggerated paranoia before loudly whispering: “Uncle Hugo is playing a prank on Daddy. Daddy thinks he’s supposed to walk into all your traps in order to get prizes.”

“...Wait what?”

Hugo. Pranked  _ Luca _ . By telling Luca to prank  _ himself. _ “That  _ absolute genius _ .”

“Don’t tell Daddy what April Fools really is, okay?” Phym asked, bouncing from foot to foot.

“Understood.” Keith replied with a smirk. “Want to come watch him struggle in the storage room?”

“Mhm! Oh, I have to go tell the other first before they give it away, then I’ll be right over!”

“I’ll make us some popcorn, how does that sound!”

“Yum!” Phym cheered. “Bye, Uncle Keith! I’ll be back!” And then the little treacherous duckling rushed back through the halls in search of their other family members.

Keith grins wickedly and snickers.  _ This is going to be great. _

O

Luca finds Ricardo walking down the hallway covered in a strange sparkly pink slime and doesn’t even need to ask to know what happened. 

“Ah, Luca.” Ricardo says, waving. The weird gel waves with him, creating an illusion of a huge frog-like hand. “Watch out if you go up to the bridge, looks like Keith already got to it.”

_ So that’s where a bunch of the traps are.  _ “I’ll be careful. What about you?”

“...I’m just going to go take a shower and get this off.”

Luca eyed the mess with sympathy. “Did you at least get anything good out of it?”

“No.” Ricardo says, both seemingly in despair and confused by the question at the same time.

Luca doesn’t ask anymore, instead heading up to the bridge.  _ Looks like I have some traps to find. _

O

Honestly, Hilda feels kind of bad for doing this to Luca, but at the same time… this is kind of amazing.

_ Some way, somehow,  _ Luca had found and triggered  _ every single one  _ of Keith’s traps on the bridge without any of them even hitting him. The bridge itself was a mess, but he looked just as pristine as he did when he first walked into the room. 

“They don’t call you the Ace of the Chrysanthemum for nothing,” She says, sitting where her clothes were glued to the captain’s chair and watching in awe.

“Thank you.” Almost as an afterthought, he pauses and asks, “Was anything good hidden in here?”

“No, I think Keith is probably keeping track to give them out after.”

“Hmm…” Luca nods. “I’ll keep looking then.” And he disappears into the elevator.

Hilda slumps into her chair, laughing into her fist, even as Amy rushes out of the elevator herself with a new outfit, towel, and pair of scissors in order to set her free from chair hell.  _ I haven’t had a good laugh in a nice long while. It’s rather unfortunate that it had to come at someone’s expense, but I’m glad for the opportunity nonetheless. _

O

Claire watches Luca go in amazement. “How is he  _ finding _ all of them?”

“They’re pretty easy to see if you’re looking,” the former Baran AGE, Lulu, responded. “Keith needs to get better at hiding them.”

“...You know he’s going to get you for that, right?” Claire asks.

“How will he even know I said it?” Lulu asks.

“He’s probably watching through the security system right now. It has audio.”

Lulu clapped her hands over her mouth. “I’m screwed. W-well, I guess that means it’s time to hide in the dormitory for the next…”

“April fool’s.” Claire tells her.

Lulu pauses, one foot still in the air, returns her hands to her side, and turns around. “Good one.”

O

Neal looked around the ruins of the bridge drily with a gaping merchant at his side. “What in the world…” Hope trailed off.

“I don’t think Keith actually understands what April Fools day is.” the boy responded.

“...April fools… if I remember correctly, wasn’t that a holiday people used to deceive each other? I didn’t think it was in this manner…”

“It’s not supposed to be.” Neal said. “Or at least the person who explained that to me after I saw it on Bugarally said that was the case.”

“...Is it safe for me to do business today?” Hope asked.

“Well, I made sure to tell him not to put any of that shit in the lobby so you should be fine.”

“One can only hope…”

O

Faith watches boredly through the link Keith sent her to the prank show, watching that idiot ace of the Hounds go through and trigger everys single trap. She receives an infuriated text from Keith.  _ “I’ll get him next time!” _

She rolls her eyes and says:  _ “Good luck. You’ll need it. He’s oddly perceptive for someone who’s so gullible.” _

O

Ein has barely set foot on the Chrysanthemum when he sees the chaos. “Oh, not  _ this  _ shit again,” he groans, remembering the certain antics of his companions in the Far East. “I thought that died out here.”

“Bugarally brought it back.” The voice of the Hounds leader greeted him. “Watch out for Keith’s traps. Oh, we’re all playing a trick on Luca right now, so don’t tell him what April Fools really is. He thinks Keith has a trap gauntlet set up and he gets prizes for triggering them.”

“...He actually fell for that?” Ein shook his head. “Nevermind that, I’m here on business. I believe Keith owes me some data…”

“Oh, he’s locked up in the God Arc Storage. He should open the door when he sees us, though.”

“He’d better.” Ein’s eyes scan the ship. “He did  _ all  _ this?”

“I think Ricardo tried to get back at him too,” Hugo says, “but Luca triggered that one as well so it failed.”

“Who’s going to clean this all up?”

“Keith, obviously.” Hugo responds deviously. “And Ricardo, since he contributed. They’ll be scrubbing floors for a few days to come.”

...Ein does not envy them.

O

Keith is less than pleased when, after Ein leaves, the doors won’t close again. He’s very hesitant to leave said doors open while he rushes to the normal storage section to grab some parts to fix it, and even  _ less  _ pleased when he finds out the security footage cut for a few minutes while he was gone and a note appeared on his desk from a mysterious sender.

He stares at the magazine-cutout letters on the page and gulps at what he reads there.

_ I’m watching you. _

“Creepy…”

In the end, though, no matter how hard he searches, he can’t find the source of the letter… or so he would lead others to believe.

“Wow, Hugo. Nice try, but you’re not getting past me with this sloppy of a job.” He smirks as he notices the way Hugo’s God Arc has been moved.  _ And the only one who could safely do that without the equipment that hasn’t moved an inch is Hugo. _

“...He’s going to get it for trying to freak me out…” He cracks his knuckles. “Now, where should I start?”

Hilda’s first clue that something is off occurs when she gets back to her office and finds that someone has rearranged every book on the shelf out of its meticulous order. This wouldn’t be a problem if these weren’t books full of logs of all of their activities and information.

_ And one is missing. _

She has to take every single book off of the shelf and reorganize it until she finally finds out that the missing book is none other than her one hidden romance novel that she would never admit to having owned…

And the only one who could possibly know its location is…

“Ricardo!” She rages, “You will pay for the day you crossed me!”

O

In the male dorms, Ricardo shivers for an unknown reason. 

“You alright, Ricardo?” Zeke asks where he’s fiddling with… something.

“Yeah, I just got a weird chill all of a sudden.” He replied. “Hmm? What do you have there?”

“Oh, it’s a puzzle box.” Zeke held it up. “Phym said she found it in her room with my name on it, so I...:”

It clicks as he slides the last piece into place, revealing an opening. “Oh, I got i-”

A cloud of confetti and pink smoke explodes into his face. Zeke curses and flings it across the room, waving a hand in front of his face. The very strong scent of what seems like Amy’s perfume on steroids wafts through the room.

“Oh god.” Ricardo covers his mouth and nose, fleeing the room with Zeke close behind him, rushing to find a fan to air out the room.

O

Neal frowns at the strange-smelling room he walks into, covering his nose. “What died here?”

“I did.” His brother says in a pathetic whine. “I died here.”

“...Okay.” He walks over to his bunk and…

Was there always a strange pink book under his pillow? When did that get there?

O

Someone has stolen all of Amy’s perfume. Normally she would think she misplaced it, but she’s seen what happened to the male dorms and knows that they’ll blame her, and this whole prank war has gone  _ way too far!  _ Even poor Phym got used as an accomplice in some malicious scheme…

“Amy!”

She pauses, watching as Claire rushes up with…

“Why are your eyes bleeding?!”

“Someone swapped out my makeup with runny ink!” She raged. “By the time I realized it it ran down my face and changed it to look like this!”

“That’s terrible!” Amy cries. “Who would do something like that?”

“... _ Keith _ .” Claire hisses. “You’ve seen what that ingrate has already done. He must’ve kept going.”

“Well then, I also happen to have a problem with him at the moment.” Amy smiles eerily. “Shall we go pay him a visit together?”

O

Lulu stands in the female dorm, staring at the scattered blood-like makeup all over the floor.

“...I’m just… going to find somewhere else to read tonight.” She turns to her bed and blinks in surprise when she finds out that Claire’s replacement makeup is neatly hidden behind her pillow.

“Wait a minute, but if that’s…”

_ Oh no. _

This was never meant to be a prank. This was a mistake. She’d bought the replacement makeup to swap out with the stuff she accidentally ruined before Claire noticed but it seemed it was already too late…

_ The only thing I can possibly do now is to dispose of the evidence! _

O

The ship is in chaos. Phym and Luca stand to the side while everyone else tries their damned hardest to tear each other a new one.

“Wow, they’re having so much fun! Phym giggled. “I wonder if Zeke liked mine!”

Luca raises an eyebrow in confusion and mild horror, watching Zeke and Amy screaming at each other, the latter in uncharacteristic rage. “You  _ didn’t _ …”

“Tee-hee-hee!” She giggled. “Everyone’s having so much fun!”

Soon enough, the shouting dies down. “What time is it?” Hugo asked tiredly.

“Almost midnight.” Hilda reads off her watch.

“Good.” The other suddenly blinks, turning to Luca with a strange look on his face. “Ah, right. Did you trigger all the traps?”

“Every last one of them.” He agrees. 

“Wait he actually did it?” Claire asks. “That’s kind of amazing…”

Neal eyes him up and down in confusion. “Wait, why would you…” And then his eyes widen. “Oh.”

“Seriously, why  _ would  _ you?” He hears Amy ask.

And while they discuss quietly, Luca looks them over.  _ I have to time it perfectly. _

“Really?” Amy asks. “You mean… You seriously told Luca that today was just Keith doing a prank gauntlet and that he’d get prizes for triggering traps?” She turns to him, gaping. “And you believed it?”

“Yeah, it was funny!” Keith said. “We really had him fooled!”

“The whole Ash Crawler was supposed to be in on it,” Lulu agreed. “Did we forget to tell you?”

“...” Neal gives them all a deadpan stare.

The first to notice this is Hugo, who tilts his head in confusion. “What?”

“We found out about it in Bugarally…” Neal said. “But I had to explain it to these two.”

“You did?” Claire asks.

“Oh, yeah. We didn’t get it at first,” Zeke said, “But then Neal told us what it was all about.”

“Who do you think explained it to me?”

Absolute. Silence.

Luca gave a small smirk. “April Fools.”

**Author's Note:**

> Luca got them all


End file.
